Maria found, after several weeks, that she was still visiting the children despite not needing to examine them for dark magic anymore.

Officially, this was so Shana could be taught about her Light Magic. Unofficially (because there really wasn't much to teach about Light Magic), this was because every time she left the children would raise a cry of such abject wailing and sadness that it was easier to promise to visit again than to ignore them. Her heart wasn't made of coldblood, after all. The Third Prince was also there, keeping to his responsibilities of taking care of the children. It was actually very concerning. Though he never said where he was going, it was known that the prince left to go somewhere every Sar. She hoped he was looking for a noble willing to protect the children as he had promised, else he was making them an appealing target, and someone could easily follow him to find this place. She knew he had spoken to Lord Claes and Lord Ascart, as well as a few others like Lord Byron and Lady Colms.

She was rather surprised by the reaction when Lady Claes found out though.

"Miss Campbell, are we still on for tomorrow?" he said, as they were all putting away papers for the day, off to enjoy a leisurely dinner.

"Yes, your highness," Maria said. "I will meet you at the usual place."

Lady Claes did a double take, tripped on her own skirt, fell, somehow managed to turn it into a roll, slammed into a bookshelf and had several books fall on her.

"Katarina!"

"Lady Claes!"

Maria threw herself across the floor, sliding into place next to Lady Claes, one hand on her head. "Don't try to more your head your ladyship, your neck might be broken," she said, calling eldritch light to her hand.

"Ow…" Lady Claes said. "Um, it's fine M– Miss Campbell, it's just a few bumps."

"Nonsense your ladyship," Maria said. "What if your roll had injured your head? You could develop brain fever, making you bedridden for days, and in that time the swelling might have affected your brain such that you lose your memories, reducing you to the mental capacity of a small child or altering your personality irrevocably!"

If anything, Lady Claes had paled again. "I'll be good," she said, though a fear still lurked in her eyes.

They were a bit late to lunch as Maria made sure there was no swelling, concussion, brain fever, or any sort of complication to Lady Claes that might affect her intelligence. She had so little to begin with, it would be cruel to make her lose more!

As they walked to the dining hall, now slightly delayed, Lady Claes's face took on a determined cast. "What you said a while ago," she said, looking nervous, "Maria are.. are the two of you going somewhere?"

Maria blinked. "Oh… yes, Lady Claes. The prince asked me to help him attend to a certain matter. Is something the matter?"

It was very worrying to see Lady Claes pale three times in the same day. "You're going somewhere together? Alone?"

Maria blinked. No, they weren't alone, there were the children and their caretakers and the Ministry official who would be escorting her, someone from the Medicinal Magic department who had this theory that medicine for adults and medicine for children should be differentiated and wanted to take measurements of the children's dimensions to make a chart of some sort.

Before she could say so, Lady Hunt, with a look like a beast smelling prey, said, "Oh my, how scandalous! Your highness, you're not cheating on Katarina with Maria are you?"

"AH! No!" Lady Claes cried, whirling at pointing at her fiancé. "Not Maria! Pick anyone else but Maria! I won't have you stealing her away from Rafael! I won't let anyone ruin what Maria has! She's so happy now! No one gets to ruin it! No ruining her happy ending!"

Something inside Maria felt… very strange and melted at those words, like quicksilver as you mixed in blood, or as if she'd just brushed fingers with Rafael.

She coughed. "Lady Claes, what have I told you about my name?"

"Ah! S-sorry Miss Campbell!"

"And about apologizing to commoners?"

"But it's so rude not to!"

"And you really shouldn't accuse someone of having affairs, especially in public," Maria said. "While I am honored by your concern, please believe when I say that the Third Prince holds absolutely no appeal to me."

Lady Claes' face lit up. "You promise?"

"I promise."

"Even if he offered you everything you ever wanted and promised to make you queen?"

"Even then."

"Well… what if he were the last man in the world?"

"Not even then," Maria said.

Lady Claes sighed in relief. "Oh, that's great!"

"Are you two done insulting me?" the Third Prince said. "I AM a prince, you know. Or should I take this to mean you were worried about me leaving you?"

Lady Claes turned an apologetic smile at him. "Well, I AM only a temporary fiancée…"

Maria had heard something like this several times before. What fool was spreading this around? What fool had gotten Lady Claes to believe it? Inappropriate as it was for the prince to lust so strongly for someone with the mind– or at least the understanding– of a child, no one could deny that the pedophile-in-spirit was at least true in his devotion. Really, if nothing else there was no stronger evidence that Lady Claes was not yet fully cognizant in the head than the fact she'd believe something so completely detached from reality.

From the look the Prince's face, the fact she so easily repeated such silliness pained him. Maria, briefly, felt sympathy for him. Then she remembered that this was a young man trying to seduce a little girl, even if she looked as old as he, and the sympathy was quickly pushed aside.

"So, if you're not running off together, where are you going?" Lady Claes asked brightly.

Prince Alan, equally brightly, said, "They're going to visit his secret children together."

"EH?!" Lady Claes rounded on her fiancée, who had enough time to glare hatred at his brother before she said, "You're a father?"

As Lady Hunt mimed a soft applause and Prince Alan bowed to her in mock acceptance, Maria decided to leave them to their own devices to have dinner. Sophia smiled at the first years, who were staring at all this in fascinated horror. "Welcome to a regular day in the student council."


And so Maria found herself in a carriage with the Ministry official Doctor Gerald, the Third Prince, and Lady Claes. Another carriage behind them was carrying Lady Hunt, Prince Alan, Lady Ascart and Lord Claes, who was most put out he was not with his sister.

While he had eventually managed to convince her that no, he was not secretly a father, Lady Claes had still insisted on coming along to see what was going on, and to meet the children in question. The prince had agreed immediately, and since wherever Lady Claes went her retinue followed…

There was, of course, excited yelling when they arrived. Maria was going to have them arrange themselves from shortest to tallest again, but Lady Claes had come down from her carriage, and…

"Oh, you're all so cute!" Lady Claes said, kneeling in front of them to look them in the eye, ignoring the dirt staining her skirt. "Hi, I'm Katarina! Can I play with you?"

… at some point the children just accepted her as one them.


The next week, she came again, this time with farming tools.

"Have you seen how much empty space was there?!" she said gleefully, wearing her green gardening (farming!) outfit. "You'd be able to plant a lot of crops and the children can have lots of healthy vegetables!"

The children liked her slightly less after that. But they forgave her eventually. Especially after she taught them a recipe involving potatoes cut into slices and fried. Thankfully the royal purse was paying for the oil.

The children loved it.